A cure for the crisis? Tackle inequality
For decades now the consensus amongst those with the power to decide policy has been that inequality is key to spurring the competition needed to bring growth. While stagnating wages at the bottom were an unfortunate side-effect, the incentive of large rewards at the top would encourage the kind of risk-taking needed to create an … Read more
Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist: An Update
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has decided not to intervene in regard to Channel 4′s advertising campaign for the new series of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’. Despite numerous complaints, including one on this site, and an outcry from the Gypsy and Traveller communities, the ASA did not deem the adverts offensive enough to contact … Read more
A4e – Action 4 Emma?
“A4e is a social purpose company with one sole aim. To improve people’s lives around the world. We do this by helping them to find work, skills, direction – or whatever it is they need.” This is how A4e (Action 4 employment) – the company that recently finds itself central to a rapidly escalating scandal … Read more
Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
This is a guest post by Emma Milne, who worked as a community worker with Travellers in Nottingham In the last couple of days The Guardian, as well as several other newspapers, has picked up on the issue of Channel 4′s latest ad campaign. At last count around 100 complaints had been lodged with the … Read more
Five reasons to scrap the legal aid bill
The Legal Aid Bill is currently passing through the committee stage in the House of Lords. It has so far only faced meagre opposition from interested parties such as lawyers and personal injury specialists. However the bill places the legal system out of reach for most people in this country. Here’s why it should be … Read more
Money Outgrown Pt.2
In part one of this blog post I looked at Tim Jackson’s book Prosperity Without Growth. I argued that, while highly illuminating and refreshing in exploring the incompatibility of relentless economic growth and non-negotiable ecological limits placed on our activity, it fails to provide two things. First, a substantial account of what, in real economic and social terms, prosperity without … Read more
Another Own Goal by the Metropolitan Police
This morning, in a room packed full of Tottenham residents, religious leaders and local schoolchildren, the Metropolitan Police failed to turn up to support a key inquiry into the riots and managed to lose one of the last pieces of respect held for them by one of the communities ravaged by last year’s disturbances. The … Read more
Money Outgrown Pt.1
This is a blog post about something I understood little about until recently, and about which I still have an enormous amount to learn. This, however, I take to be a more advantageous starting point than that which you might call ‘expert’, given the willful ignorance of ecological limits to economic growth still so often … Read more
Boris cracks down on protests in Central London
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is planning to ban ‘unauthorised’ demonstrations at two of London’s most iconic protest spots. Both Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square are set to be governed by a new set of draconian byelaws which the Mayor has submitted to the government for confirmation. The new byelaws will give the Mayor power to … Read more
The End of the Opposition
Yesterday the official opposition gave up. In a packed room at The Insititute for Education Ed Balls finally confirmed what many of us have been thinking for a while: The Labour Party aren’t the alternative. As the cuts continue to bite, the wages of workers remain stagnant and the economic outlook for the UK remains … Read more
